Bengaluru civic body declares 38 wards as COVID-19 hotspots

The BBMP South Zone has the highest hotspots with 12 wards followed by East Zone (9 wards); West Zone has seven wards and Mahadevapura has six wards. Both Bommanahalli and Yelahanka have two wards each.

A BBMP official at a coronavirus awareness drive in Bengaluru. (Express photo)

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has declared 38 wards across six zones in Bengaluru as hotspots after at least one positive COVID-19 case was reported from each of the wards in the past 28 days.

According to the data analysis made by the BBMP’s COVID-19 war room, 38 of 198 wards in the BBMP limits have been identified as hotspots. As of Wednesday morning, Bengaluru has reported 80 coronavirus cases where 31 people have been recovered and two have died in the city.

“If one ward has one positive case, we are declaring it as a hotspot for coronavirus,” said a senior BBMP official. The BBMP data shows that 11 wards have one or more cases and the remaining 27 wards had only one case each in the past 28 days.

The BBMP South Zone has the highest hotspots with 12 wards followed by East Zone (9 wards); West Zone has seven wards and Mahadevapura has six wards. Both Bommanahalli and Yelahanka have two wards each.

The BBMP published the details of the hotspots on Tuesday but the civic body has not given any information about the kind of restrictions or regulations that would be implemented in these hotspot areas.

On April 10, the BBMP sealed two wards Bapuji Nagar and Padarayanapura in a bid to prevent further spread of novel coronavirus in the areas. The civic body has deployed as many as 160 teams, comprising of ASHA workers and booth workers, to carry out surveillance work in these two wards.

With 80 cases, Bengaluru has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Karnataka. On Tuesday, the city registered its second COVID-19 death of a 76-year-old male resident of the city. According to the health bulletin, the patient (P 219) was admitted to a private hospital in the city on April 12 and had underlying conditions of severe acute respiratory illness.

On Monday, a 65-year-old died after he was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bengaluru on Sunday. In Karnataka, as of 5 pm on Tuesday, a total of 260 positive COVID-19 cases have been reported of which 179 are active. As many as 71 have recovered in the state so far.